Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students

1. Ineffective Contextualization
2. Unclear Learning Outcomes
3. Misuse of the environment
4. Illusive grading practices
5. Inadequate time allocation

Read more on this at: http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/68089_1/

Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration

New in the Campus Library reference collection (1st floor)!

Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration
(ebook version, too)
Edited By: Lawrence A. Tomei, Robert Morris University, USA

From the publisher:

As more and more universities, schools, and corporate training organizations develop technology plans to ensure technology will directly benefit learning and achievement, the demand is increasing for an all-inclusive, authoritative reference source on the infusion of technology into curriculums worldwide.

The Encyclopedia of Information Technology Curriculum Integration amasses a comprehensive resource of concepts, methodologies, models, architectures, applications, enabling technologies, and best practices for integrating technology into the curriculum at all levels of education. Compiling 154 articles from over 125 of the world’s leading experts on information technology, this authoritative reference strives to supply innovative research aimed at improving academic achievement, teaching and learning, and the application of technology in schools and training environments.

Understanding the Net Generation's Texts

From TL Infobits August 2008 (thanks to Rob Estes for sharing..):

UNDERSTANDING THE NET GENERATION'S TEXTS

In "Why Professor Johnny Can't Read: Understanding the Net Generation's Texts" (INNOVATE, vol. 4,no. 6, August/September 2008), Mark Mabrito and Rebecca Medley of Purdue University Calumet discuss the difference in literacy skills between the current generation of college students and the faculty who teach them. They describe the differences between the two groups as "not a generation gap but an information processing gap" that can be bridged by faculty experiencing the digital world from the students' perspectives.

"Much has been written about the way in which the [Net-Generation] learner acquires and processes information. Coming of age in an environment saturated by technology, where the digital world interacts more and more seamlessly with the "real" world, means that these students represent the first generation of virtual learners--learners accustomed to seeking and building knowledge in a technology-enhanced environment. When these learners seek information, they are more likely to look for it online than anywhere else since this is the environment with which they are most familiar. Are educators rising to the challenge of teaching these students? Some evidence suggests that they are not."

The paper is available online at
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=510
Registration is required to access articles; registration is free.

Elit 2.0: A Guide to Literary Works on Social Software

Do you want to teach Web 2.0 technologies but need some exemplary creative texts for students to "read" as examples and/or illustrations of the tool's creative potential?

Check out ELit: A Guide to Literary Works on Social Software

"While students are still developing literacies in new technologies it is important that their adoption involves more than just accepting the software at interface value. What these technologies are and can be has yet to be decided and this set of electronic literary works offers an artistic exploration of their possibilities that will enrich the quest for software literacy."
From: WRT: Writer Response Theory: a blog and podcast dedicated to discussing text arts forms

Social Technographics defined

I hadn't heard this phrase used before to describe the various roles users entail when using/interacting with social technologies.

This online slide presentation from Forrester quickly outlines the multiple roles, which are:
Creators
Critics
Collectors
Joiners
Spectators
Inactives

I think many users can operate in multiple roles depending on the social network and tasks at hand.

These role definitions also offer a nice conceptual structure in which to introduce students to the current internet landscape of production, consumption, and socializing.

Pedagogy 2.0

Great article on how Web 2.0 can create pedagogy 2.0. Here's a snippet. The rest of the article is at Innovate, a journal on online education.

"Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by:

• Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas;
• Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;
• Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;
  Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;
• Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;
• Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; and
• Learning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.

With this learner-based, communal, media-rich, flexible approach, Pedagogy 2.0 uses social software tools to enable the development of dynamic communities of learning through connectivity, communication, and participation."